Radio Citizen On the Cinematic Jazz Tip

By: Spacelab Research Staff
“I’d like my album to fulfill some unkept promises of the 1990s,” says Niko Schabel, the main person behind Radio Citizen. “For me, many ideas didn’t reach their full potential and we entered a period of boring programming, lounge-overkill, and bad acid-jazz.”

So that's exactly what Niko set out to do. He and his Berlin-based group of musicians have been making very inspired music, fusing styles from around the world. The music is labeled as anything from cinematic jazz, dub, reggae, hip hop, afro beat, electronic, and the list goes on. Think of Eliot Lipp combined with Portishead. World music with jazz beats.

He'll be releasing Berlin Serengeti on Ubiquity Records on September 12th. He was introduced to the label by Quantic, who thought that Radio Citizen would fit in with the Ubiquity style. Label rep Andrew Jervis dug it, and a signing followed.

The live shows range back and forth from from Niko with turntables to a full on orchestra-style experience, complete with many players. “Sun Ra vs. James Brown!... this sounds like more fun to me,” says Niko . “Band members will be multi-instrumentalist to get that full spectrum of sounds. I think at the moment there is a definite need for more live music.”